


When Winter First Begins To Bite

by Tehri



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Creepy, Creepy hobbits, Fell Winter, Implied Cannibalism, Starvation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-04-26 17:13:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5013121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tehri/pseuds/Tehri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When faced with starvation during the Fell Winter, hobbits resorted to drastic measures to keep their loved ones alive. It was never spoken of once it was done, but when Bilbo finds himself feeling the pangs of starvation once again many years later, it's time for the truth to come out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When Winter First Begins To Bite

Bilbo had only been twenty-one years old that winter. It was the first true hardship he had ever faced in his life, and it was unlike anything he had ever heard of before. He had been over the moon with joy when the first snowflakes came – snow was a rarity in Hobbiton, and it was much loved by all children. But then it never stopped snowing, and it got steadily colder. He knew that everyone whom his father, Bungo, had spoken to had said that it was going to be a harsh winter. Belladonna, Bilbo’s mother, had commented that it would probably become a three-meal-winter. Three meals in a day was not quite something that sounded promising to a growing tween, but when he asked his parents they reassured him and said that nothing was certain.

“The weather has always been unpredictable,” Bungo had told him. “It might change in a week.”

It never changed. The snow kept falling, and the cold crept through the walls of their smial and into their bodies. It didn’t take long before it was too cold to sleep alone, and Bilbo and his parents simply holed up together before the fire, wrapped up in their blankets and pressing against each other for warmth.

Then the foodstores began to run short.

It wasn’t as Belladonna predicted. It was not a three-meal-winter, but closer to a single-meal-winter. There wasn’t enough food to go around, and it didn’t take long for children to realise that their parents starved themselves so that their little ones could have more than one meal. Bilbo pushed back when he noticed, and flat out refused to eat unless his parents had something to eat as well other than watery soup.

When the news of invading wolves started to spin, desperation started to set in.

Bilbo never asked his parents where they found the meat. He knew what it was, he had heard his uncle say it when it was brought to them. But there was so much of it, and they were so very hungry, so hungry that it felt as though they were going to die. He ate his fill, and he never asked. His parents ate as well, regained some of their lost strength, and didn’t mention it again.

Only once did Bilbo overhear something regarding this matter, and it was when his uncle Bingo and his family came to Bag End after having struggled through the blizzard outside.

“Father said it’s happened before, during the Wandering Years,” Bungo commented quietly during a conversation with his younger brother, when he thought that Bilbo wasn’t listening. “Hobbits were driven to the brink of despair because there was no food, and then…”

“Yes, I remember that,” Bingo muttered in reply. “Father only told that story if the winter was bad and we complained about having less to eat. I never thought it would actually happen during my lifetime…”

They never said more on the matter.

It was already early mid-February when help came. Gandalf, friend of Bilbo’s grandfather the Old Took, came to the Shire along with a group of Men he called Rangers. They brought food with them, as much as they could spare, to ensure that the hobbits wouldn’t starve to death. They helped the small creatures drive out the wolves, and they aided them with the sick and the wounded.

No hobbits ever mentioned why they weren’t already dead.

 

Curled up in his blanket by the fire, Bilbo felt quite miserable. He hadn’t thought that the journey could get much worse after Mirkwood. They’d been hungry and thirsty, but they had made it; he wasn’t inclined to admit that they had only made it because they’d been captured by the elves, but they had _made it_. That was the entire point. They hadn’t starved to death. They’d been desperately hungry, to the point of considering if the strange plants they could find were edible, but it never went beyond that.

Now, holed up in a Mountain with an ongoing siege, and with only cram to eat, Bilbo was starting to feel desperate. Cram was barely more than a chewing-exercise. It didn’t fill his stomach as proper food did, and he was always hungry. What was more, they were running out of the little biscuits. He knew it, the dwarves knew it, but no one said anything.

His stomach growled loudly and interrupted his reveries.

“I’m so hungry,” he groaned, putting his head in his hands. “What will we do if the food runs out?”

“No idea,” Kili answered glumly. “We can’t get out of here to hunt, and there’s no food in here.”

“I suppose that will be the cue for us to surrender,” Fili said vaguely. “Unless uncle expects us to eat the gold.”

“Can we stop talking about food?” Dwalin snapped angrily. “It’s only making it worse.”

Bilbo closed his eyes and sighed. He tried to will himself to think of something else, to think of flowers and warm sunny days, but all it resulted in was consideration of vegetables and wonderful sweet strawberries.

Instead he took to watching his friends in silence as they bickered amongst themselves. And as he watched them, a thought began to form in his head. He recognised it, had had the same thought about thirty years ago. But he shook himself.

_There’s still cram to eat_ , he told himself. _Calm yourself, Bilbo._

 

As the days passed and tension in the Mountain grew, the dwarves did start to notice that Bilbo distanced himself from them. When they came across him, they could hear him muttering to himself, though he always stopped as soon as he noticed them. There was a strange look on his face whenever he spoke with them or simply looked at them, a look that disappeared as soon as he seemed to realise that it was there.

“Are you feeling well?” they would ask. “Is it the strict rations that bother you?”

“I am quite well,” he would answer. “The Fell Winter was worse than this.”

But when they asked him about the Fell Winter, the look returned to his face and he turned away from them and simply said that it was a particularly harsh winter in his youth.

Finally, even Thorin noticed that something was wrong. The dwarf-king had kept himself busy in the treasure chamber for most of the time, but even he had to eat. He would join them for meals every now and then, and then he would speak mostly with Bilbo. The hobbit would give him the same look as he gave the others, and it certainly didn’t escape Thorin’s notice.

Next time Bilbo came into the treasure chamber to convince his friend to eat, Thorin asked him:

“Are you quite well, master Baggins? You’ve seemed rather distant these past few days.”

“There’s been much on my mind,” Bilbo answered steadily. “The others have worried that the strict rations have been getting to me, but in all honesty, the Fell Winter was worse.”

“The Fell Winter?” Thorin gave him a sharp look. “What do you mean?”

“Even you dwarves must’ve been affected,” Bilbo said, looking down at his feet. “Thirty years ago, the winter was particularly harsh. Even the Brandywine river froze, and white wolves came into the Shire. We had very little food. It ran out early on.”

“Yes, it was bad for us as well,” Thorin answered slowly. “We sent out scouts to see if they could find food anywhere, or if they could make their way to Bree to trade for supplies.”

For a moment, Bilbo froze. There was a hunted expression on his face for a split second before he forced it away.

“Scouts, you say,” he hummed. “Must’ve been very bad, then.”

“Aye, it was.” The dwarf tilted his head slightly. “Many that we sent east never returned. We’ve never found out what happened to them.”

“Is that so,” Bilbo said vaguely, turning away. “Well, come now, the others are waiting.”

“You’ve behaved strangely lately, Bilbo,” Thorin said, making Bilbo pause mid-step. “Is there anything that I ought to know?”

“Hobbits are more affected by hunger than most others,” Bilbo replied. “I’m sure I’ve simply been hungry.”

Thorin started to move and fell into step beside the hobbit. They were silent for a long while, and Bilbo seemed to think that Thorin had accepted his answer. Then the dwarf-king spoke again:

“How early did the hobbits run out of food?”

Bilbo’s eyes flickered to him.

“Late January,” he said quietly. “By then we’d been down to a single meal per day for half a month.”

“You didn’t store enough, then?”

“We stored as much as we were able, but the land didn’t give us as much as we needed. It wasn’t a particularly giving year.” He smiled slightly. “We did receive help. Gandalf brought the Rangers to us with food and medicine, mid-February. We wouldn’t have lived if not for them.”

“That still makes a few weeks without food,” Thorin said, frowning and giving the hobbit a curious look. “How did you survive?”

That made Bilbo stop. He stood completely still, frozen like a statue, and stared down on his feet. Thorin stopped as well and watched him warily, wondering what was wrong. Finally Bilbo looked up, and the strange expression was back on his face.

“We ate what we could,” he said quietly. “Hobbits become desperate when there’s no food, Thorin. Very desperate. I’m sure we would’ve eaten rocks if we could.” He took a deep breath, as though steeling himself for what he was about to say. “My uncle Isembold came to us in Hobbiton. He and some others had been out west of Michel Delving to find food, to see if there were any storages that had anything left. They brought back meat. Lots of it. And they shared it with everyone, as much as they needed. With a little bit of rationing, we had enough to last.”

“You found meat?” Thorin asked incredulously. “What on earth did they find?” When Bilbo didn’t answer, he pushed. “Deer? Or did they kill wolves, or boars?”

“No.” Bilbo looked so small all of a sudden, like a child caught doing something they shouldn’t. “No, no deer, no wolves or boars, not that far west… But I heard my da and my uncle talk…”

“Our scouts must’ve skirted the borders,” Thorin argued. “They would’ve found a similar source, surely.”

Then he paused.

Their scouts had skirted the borders. In bad weather, they may well have been far inside the borders of the Shire.

The hobbits out hunting hadn’t found deer or wolves or boars that far west.

But they had returned with meat.

A suspicion began to grow in Thorin’s mind, and he narrowed his eyes at Bilbo.

“What did they find, Bilbo?” he asked slowly. “What did they bring back to your family?”

Bilbo gave him a wan smile.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “We were all desperate, Thorin. We were being driven mad with hunger. We had to do something, and uncle’s hunting party came up with an idea that temporarily solved the problem.”

Thorin could only stare at him in disbelief.

 

Hobbits didn’t often become desperate for food. But if necessary, they would take drastic measures to survive. It just wasn’t polite to speak of it, or to suggest it should be done. But sometimes, there was no point in arguing about social etiquette when their bellies were rumbling ceaselessly.

Hobbits were small creatures, and they were able to be incredibly quiet. Quiet enough to sneak up on any unsuspecting target. And a whole group of hobbits, all driven to the point of despair out of hunger, were not very easy to fend off.

They had to eat.

**Author's Note:**

> Long story short, I have had this spinning in my head since last year but never done anything about it because it was a stupid joke at the time.  
> Then I've watched a few playthroughs of Until Dawn, and maybe this came back into my head, and maybe I had to write something about it.


End file.
